Yep.  They sure are!

See if you can guess what fractal program made this one:

U.S. shot MIKE of Operation Ivy, 31 Oct 1952

Oh.  You guessed wrong.  But that’s understandable.  You see, the entire fractal generator that made the explosion was destroyed in the making.  Fast rendering time!  –but it only works once!

The Ivy Mike "Sausage" device before detonation.

I think they called it “Ivy Mike” because they weren’t sure if it was going to be a boy or a girl.

Sunsets are a cliche, aren’t they?  It’s the sort of art that beginner painters and beginner photographers make on their summer vacations.  Well, at the beginning of the Atomic Age, we were all beginners.  Here’s a nuclear sunset:

U.S. shot KING of Operation Ivy, November 15, 1952

This one reminds me of Monet.  Maybe it’s better than Monet.  It could sure blow Monet’s lilies right out of the water!

So hot and yet so cool!

Painted on black velvet; I love it! This one's going in the living room.

We don’t think of atomic weapons testing as fractal art because it’s not made with a computer.  But there’s been as much tweaking done to them as anything on the Ultra Fractal mailing list.  The early artists wouldn’t recognize today’s nuclear weapons.  They don’t look anything like the fractals made on the old Amigas.  Things have really changed.

The Past is sending signals

I like to go back to the old days and ask, “What if?”

What if… the biggest fractal ever made left a radioactive hole so deadly that even today we can only look at it from Space?

What if… I showed you a sunset so huge and fiery that it just blew you away?

...bet you'd say, "Wow!"

~photos from Wikipedia Wikimedia Commons Operation Ivy